turning burl caps

[Stacey S]

I have seen several burls turned where the outside was left entirely intact. no attachment points etc... How are these held on the lathe. I seem to remember hearing that a large backer board is on the lathe and the burl is hot glued to the backerboard, with supports to stiffen it?
Thanks fo rthe help.

Stacey

 

[Paul Engle]

Stacey , I have done one and used a screw chuck to hold it by the face and turned a small mortise on the bottom { where the burly points are, made a walnut pedistal for it }, as it was full of punk I litterly soaked it in wood hardener for nearly a month before turning it,(leaving the burly points on the bottom and cleaning out the bark by hand which left some red spots from my blood thining medication , at my age ( ?) the skin gets pretty thin along the arms) , fliped it and did the inside work. My #3 daughter has it to hold either bananas or tomatoes in it ...... i know, I know ....but she loves it, and it only cost me 20$ for the half round burl , took 20 hrs total to finish and was offered 300$ for it ....is 7" wide by 12" long and 3 " deep and is maple .I must be nuts......

 

[Stacey S]

Thanks for the idea Chips29. Last night I did some looking online and did some searching for some work by Terry Scott out of Australia. I had seen where he had done some of these before. Well I found a posting on the WOW site where he said that he did infact mount the burl to a disk mounted on a faceplate with wedges and hotmelt glue. I tried it today with the burl that I had and it turned out GREAT. I was really impresed with how well the hot melt glue held. Even though I used the tail stock until I was almost complete I fell like taht I almost could have turned it without the tailstock but my nerves couldn't have handled it.
I have attached 3 pictures of the process. One shows the burl glued to the faceplate. One shows me turning the burl and the last shows me holding the finished burl. When you look at the bottom of this piece there are no mounting holes just the natural outside of the burl.
Stacey

 

[Norm Smith]

Stacey, Nice job. Thats how you learn. I use my tail stock as long as I can on everything that I can. You did very well.
Norm

 

[KurtB]

Stacey,
Outstanding post and a great photo, too! I just finished a red mallee burl, but I knew I wanted a base to elevate the piece, so I turned a small recess, and used an expansion grip to hold it. The piece was fairly light, and I couldn't use the tailstock, but it held fine! Will post photos when it is done. Thanks for your post.
KurtB

 

[Ron Sardo]

Good Job Stacy, Looks great.

 

[Paul Engle]

Oh yea baby dats the one alright, very nice.The ts gives great support until ready to flip and I would not do one on the screw with out using the ts cept to do the mortice or tennon. Very well done Stacy.KUTGW.thanks for sharing with us, great photos btw.
Paul

 

[Stacey S]

Thanks for the comments. It was really fun to turn I will be doing it again. Should have seen my wife. She barely came in the shop. To take the pictures she hid behind the table saw and the other lathe.

Here is a picuture of the finished bowl, front and back. The dimensions are 13" x 11" x 4" thick finished with danish oil and will be buffed as soon as the oil dries.

Stacey

 

[gbeersjr]

How did you clean the glue off of the outside of the burl?

 

[hairfolicle2]

Excellent work Stacey, looks very cool.

 

[Stacey S]

gbeersjr,
I used a pocket knife and picked the glue off of the outside. As well as it holds it comes off quite easily. It just takes a little time, infact I just was showing it to someone at work this morning and saw where I need to pick at it some more.
Stacey

 

[Charlie Knighton]

great work and thanks for the how to photos!

just a thought, i have used a freezer to get chewing gum off clothes, i wonder if that would work to get glue off the burl, anybody have any thoughts?